time, before his insulted nerves of
mouth and tongue gave full warning, to absorb two of the 'simmons. Whew!
What a face he made when the puckering juice got to work, and convinced
him that he had been sucking a disguised lump of alum. Choking and
gasping, he called for the water we were far from; and _he_ won't try an
unfrosted persimmon again!

My clerical friend who brought home the fairy tale about the red-bud,
or Judas-tree, might well have based his story on the American
persimmon, but for the fact that this puckery little globe, so brilliant
and so deceptive before frost, loses both its beauty and its astringency
when slightly frozen. Then its tender flesh is suave and delicious, and
old Jove might well choose it for his own.

[Illustration: The persimmon tree in fruiting time]

But the tree--that is a beauty all summer, with its shining leaves,
oblong, pointed and almost of the magnolia shape. It will grace any
situation, and is particularly one of the trees worth planting along
highways, to relieve the monotony of too many maples, ashes,
horse-chestnuts and the like, and to offer to the passer-by a tempting
fruit of which he will surely not partake too freely when it is most
attractive. I read that toward the Western limit of its range the
persimmon, in Louisiana, Eastern Kansas and the Indian Territory,
becomes another tree of the first magnitude, towering above a hundred
feet. This would be well worth seeing!

There is another persimmon in the South, introduced from Japan, the
fruits of which are sold on the fruit-stands of Philadelphia, Boston
and New York. This, the "kaki" of Japan, is a small but business-like
tree, not substantially hardy north of Georgia, which provides great
quantities of its beautiful fruits, rich in coloring and sweet to the
taste, and varying greatly in size and form in its different varieties.
These 'simmons do not need the touch of frost, nor do they ever attain
the fine, wild, high flavor of the frost-bitten Virginian fruits; the
tree that bears them has none of the irregular beauty of our native
persimmon, nor does it approach in size to that ornament of the
countryside.

* * * * *

And now, in closing these sketches, I become most keenly sensible of
their deficiencies. Purely random bits they are, coming from a busy man,
and possessing the one merit of frankness. Deeply interested in trees,
but lacking the time for continuous study, I have b